Part 1
Jeremiah 1:8 (NASB20) "Do not be afraid of them, For I am with you to save you," declares the LORD.
When God calls us to do His will there is no one who can stand in our way. When we are working for God we do not be afraid of what other people may think or do. It might not always be pleasant — Jeremiah had his share of hard times — but when we are doing God’s will we should know that we are using our lives in the best, most valuable way we can — in service to the Lord. No matter what struggles you may face, it’s better than living a meaningless existence.
God sent Jeremiah to do His will. Jeremiah had to make many sacrifices in carrying out his mission. He did not have an easy life just because he was following God’s lead. In fact, following God probably made his life harder than it would have been otherwise — from a worldly perspective, that is. But Jeremiah was faithful to God, and his life was spent in such a way as to be remembered throughout the ages.
Some might like to think that following God makes things easier in terms of comfort and convenience, but it’s often quite the opposite. Jesus said, “whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternity.” It’s hard to hate your life in this world when everything is easy and convenient for you. It’s when times are hard and you have nothing to lose that it becomes much easier to loosen your grip on this world and give yourself completely to God.
Do not be afraid of what others think, or of the cost of following God. Put yourself in His hands, trust in Him, and be faithful to Him. Then the true reward — our Father’s heavenly reward — will be yours.
Jeremiah 3:8 (NASB20) "And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and prostituted herself also.
After Solomon died, Israel separated into two nations. The northern tribes were called Israel, and the southern tribes were called Judah. Israel turned their backs on God, and worshiped Baal and other gods. Eventually God gave them up and allowed them to be overtaken by the Assyrians. They were sent into exile, and foreigners were sent to occupy their territory. The nation of Judah saw all of this happen, and, presumably, they knew why it happened.
Did that stop Judah from making the same mistakes? No. Judah had a few kings that tried to lead the nation in faithfulness to God, but they had more kings who did evil in the sight of the Lord, and eventually they too were conquered and exiled.
God tells us not to fear. And when we fear Him, we are showing awe and reverence for Him. Judah did neither. You would think that Judah would have saw what happened to Israel and been afraid of it happening to them. You would think that they would have leaned into their fear of the Lord since He proved His faithfulness to them time and time again. But no. They, like us, had short memories and overwhelming desires. They did not fear God, and it led to them being overtaken by another nation.
Fear the Lord, and you will not need to be afraid of anything else.
Jeremiah 10:5 (NASB20) "They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot walk! Do not fear them, For they can do no harm, Nor can they do any good."
This verse is about the foolishness of idolatry. Idols are powerless. People create them and assign them some level of importance in their own minds, but don’t realize that the idol only means something to them because they want it to. They are not to be feared.
What idols are you afraid of? Maybe it’s not an idol of wood or stone, but an idol of the future — perhaps retirement. Are you overly concerned about your bank account? Maybe it’s an idol of something you possess — are worries about that fancy car keeping you up at night?
Trust in God, and you won’t need to worry about what you will eat, or what you will wear because you know that He will provide everything you need. And if He isn’t providing everything you want, then maybe He has something better planned for you if you will just be patient and trust in Him.
Hold loosely to this world. Let go of the worries and cares of things that only give temporary satisfaction, and will pass away and be forgotten eventually. Surrender yourself into the hands of God. Trust in Him, and He will take care of you.
Part 2
Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NASB20) "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose trust is the LORD. For he will be like a tree planted by the water That extends its roots by a stream, And does not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought, Nor cease to yield fruit.
I have come to notice that almost everything in the Bible is repeated at least twice. In this passage, starting at Jeremiah 17:5, I hear the echo of Psalm 1. Blessed is the one who trusts God, and cursed is the one who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength. I am also reminded of Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.”
This passage from Jeremiah strikes so many chords in me and resonates with so much of what I have learned about not fearing but trusting in the Lord. We cannot trust in our own strength or understanding because it is limited. The same goes for everyone else. Every living person except Jesus has had limited and incomplete strength and understanding. Even today people claim to be experts and claim to know what is best for everyone else, only to be proven wrong shortly thereafter.
But there are no limits to God’s strength or understanding. We can trust in Him because He is not only worthy of our trust, but He is truly the only one with the ability to live up to our trust. Trust is not only about doing the right thing, but it also implies that you are able to do that right thing. A person who wants to fly might have the best intentions, but if they don’t know how to actually fly their character traits matter little in your decision of whether you want to fly with them or not.
God is the only one who can truly provide for your needs. He is the only one who can truly protect you from evil. He is the only one who can give you strength to endure trials and adversity. And Jesus is the only one who can atone for your sins. There are others who may want to do these things for you, or help you do them for yourself — and they may wholeheartedly have the best intentions — but nobody is able to do the things for you that God designed you to rely on Him for.
And since God has designed us to rely on Him then we do not have to fear anything else in life as long as we are doing what we were designed for — trusting Him!
Jeremiah 23:4 (NASB20) "I will also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them; and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing," declares the LORD.
In this passage God is rebuking the leaders of Israel for destroying and scattering the sheep of His pasture. He says that He will attend to them for their evil deeds, then He will gather the remnant of His flock out of all the countries where He has driven them. Then He says He will raise up shepherds over them and they will no longer fear or be dismayed.
God holds leaders more accountable because they have been trusted with authority and influence over His people. When leaders fail to be faithful and trustworthy in their duties, God calls them out and deals with their wickedness. This does not happen without collateral damage, though. When God punishes a nation for the wickedness of its leaders, there are plenty of innocent people who get caught up in that punishment. But God is faithful to those who are faithful to Him, and He always restores His promises to that faithful remnant.
That doesn’t mean that everything will be restored within a single lifetime, but God’s promises, like those to Abraham, span generations, and, ultimately, eternity.
God knows when the authority that He gives out has been overcome by corruption and wickedness, and He does enact justice on those who are guilty, but God is also merciful and patient. And, since mercy is the opposite of justice — it is when you are spared from what you deserve, or what you had coming — then it may appear that God is not doing anything about the current state of corruption and wickedness. But God knows what He’s doing, and we just have to trust in Him. We don’t have to be afraid, but we do have to be eternally minded. We can’t look for instant gratification.
It’s like the parable of the tares and the wheat. The farmer did not want his servants to uproot the weeds from his garden because they would also uproot the good crops. Instead he was willing to let the weeds grow with the crops, and then do the work of separating the bad from the good during the harvest.
God will send in good shepherds for His flock once again. We just have to trust in the Lord.
Part 3
Jeremiah 30:10 (NASB20) 'And do not fear, Jacob My servant,' declares the LORD, 'And do not be dismayed, Israel; For behold, I am going to save you from far away, And your descendants from the land of their captivity. And Jacob will return and be at peace, without anxiety, And no one will make him afraid.
Read Jeremiah 30:4-10, and tell me if it doesn’t strike a chord with you.
Verse 5 says, “I have heard a sound of terror, of fear, and there is no peace.” He must have been listening to the news from our time — there is nothing but fear mongering going on today. Everyone is continually told to be afraid of everything. Where is the encouragement or edification?
One verse in this chapter that particularly stood out to me is Jeremiah 30:6 where God says, “Ask now, and see if a male can give birth. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in childbirth? And why have all faces turned pale?” That sounds so much like the world we live in now. Gender confusion appears to also have been an issue in Judah before the exile. And Pale faces makes me think of everyone sitting inside staring at screens instead of being outside in the sun, but it could also be painted faces like all the drag stuff that’s becoming more prevalent.
God says in Jeremiah 30:8 that on that day the Lord will break the yoke from their necks and strangers will no longer make them slaves, but they will serve the Lord, and David their king whom He will raise up for them. Reading that immediately brings Jesus to my mind. He is the eternal king from the line of David, and He is our Lord.
Then He tells them not to be afraid or be dismayed. In this passage God is assuring Israel that He will bring them back from captivity, and give them peace, and no one will need to be afraid or anxious. But I think He is also speaking to us. We have been swept away into the land of Babylon without even walking out our front door. Overnight our nation has transformed into something that would have been thought absurd only a few years ago. We have been captured and taken into captivity to a new land - right in our own homes.
The more I read Jeremiah, the more I think God was telling him about today — our time. I know the Bible says that there is nothing new under the sun, so perhaps the wickedness that we see today is a repeat of the wickedness from the days when God cast Israel out into Babylon. But so much of Jeremiah speaks to me of the world as we know it today.
In all the chaos and confusion of our times it might be easy to lose sight of the fact that God has us in His hands, and that we are living out His plans for us. Sometimes we think that being saved means that life will be easy, but life is rarely easy for God’s people. Noah and his family were the only survivors of a catastrophic flood. Abraham was led into a foreign land that was stricken with famine. The prophets were never received well — except for Jonah, and he didn’t like the fact that the people of Nineveh listened to him. And even Jesus, the Son of the Most High, was killed because He was faithful to God.
We don’t have to be afraid or anxious of the struggles we will face in this life. God has us in his hands. Our eternal lives are secure in His kingdom. Our temporary life here will pass away whether it is easy or hard, so it is our eternal life that really matters, and God is mighty to save us and restore us to Him. We do not need to fear this world, we only need to trust God.
Jeremiah 36:24 (NASB20) Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words did not tremble in fear, nor did they tear their garments.
This passage presents the idea of not fearing in a different way. And by that I mean the king did not fear when he should have.
God told Jeremiah to write down everything He told him, so Jeremiah dictated to Baruch and he wrote everything on a scroll. Some scribes read the scroll and it scared them. They were not viewing what it said with an agenda in mind, but rather with an open mind to what God had to say to them. Then, recognizing the importance of what the scroll said, they went and told the king about the scroll and the king demanded to hear it read. But, before they could finish reading it to the king, he cut it up and burned it.
The king was so obstinate that he didn’t even listen to the whole scroll. It said something that triggered him and his immediate reaction was to censor it, to cancel it, to destroy it and deny it. Rather than hear with patience and have an open mind as to whether the scroll contained any valuable information, the king was controlled by passion and bias.
The king’s reaction might be expected if the scroll contained complete nonsense. And that makes me think that, to him, the words of God might have sounded like complete nonsense. But there’s an irrationality to the kings reaction. It wasn’t like he determined the scroll to contain lies and ordered the scribes to destroy it. He heard part of it and, against the advisement of his scribes, destroyed the scroll himself on the spot. It didn’t say what he wanted it to say, so he had to deny its existence.
What you do and don’t fear says a lot about you. The king did not fear the words of the Lord, or rather it seemed as if he was actually afraid of even hearing them. Some of his scribes did fear the words of the Lord, and deemed them important enough to bring them to the kings attention. Who was more likely to act wisely, the scribes or the king?
How do you handle truth? Especially truth that makes you uncomfortable, or convicts you? Do you correct yourself, or do you try to deny the truth? Do you trust God, or do you fear and deny what He says?
Part 4
Jeremiah 40:9 (NASB20) Then Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, swore to them and to their men, saying, "Do not be afraid of serving the Chaldeans; stay in the land and serve the king of Babylon, so that it may go well for you.
Jeremiah was released from the group of people who were carried off to Babylon and returned to Gedaliah in Judah. Gedaliah was a governor that the king of Babylon chose to administer Judah. He encouraged everyone not to fear the Chaldeans, which — to me — sounds like he’s telling them to get used to the new status quo. And it seemed to work for a while because they ended up having an abundant harvest of wine and summer fruit.
Gedaliah was not wise though, and he brushed off threats to his life, which left him vulnerable and ultimately cost him his life. It sounds to me like he trusted in the king of Babylon a little too much, and, instead of trusting in God to protect him he probably thought that no one would dare harm him since he was a governor appointed by the king of Babylon.
In society the status quo ebbs and flows. Those currently in power make lots of promises that never come to fruition. But God does not change, and His promises are eternal. You might need to adapt to new circumstances as they occur around you, but you should always have your house built on the Rock of Jesus. Don’t get too comfortable because you find favor in the sight of people, instead seek your rest in the hands of the Lord.
Jeremiah 42:11 (NASB20) 'Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him,' declares the LORD, 'for I am with you to save you and rescue you from his hand.
At this point Gedaliah had been killed, and his murderer was also overtaken and killed, but the people feared what the king of Babylon would do to them nevertheless. Many of them decided to flee to Egypt for protection from the king of Babylon, but God told them not to fear him. God promised to show them compassion, and said that even the king of Babylon would have compassion on them and restore them to their own land.
But, God said, if they flee to Egypt then the sword and famine that they were anxious about would follow them there and destroy them in Egypt, and they would have no refugees or survivors left to them in Egypt, and they would not see the promised land again.
Of course, the people did not listen to Jeremiah. They accused him of telling a lie. And they took all the remnant of Judah — men, women, children, livestock, and even Jeremiah and Baruch - and fled to Egypt.
I can’t say that it is always easy not to fear. I admit that trusting the Lord is sometimes a scary thing to do because my heart longs to be in control of every situation. But in those moments when I find myself getting anxious and trying to figure out how to control different situations — mostly ones made up in my own mind — I have to remind myself to surrender to God, to trust Him to take care of me, and to be faithful to Him no matter what may come.
I think that trusting God takes practice. And I believe that He is faithful to His promises. If you don’t learn to trust God in the little, daily anxieties and the imaginary concerns of your own flesh, then when the true times of chaos and crisis come you will not trust Him. Instead you will try to handle everything with your own wits and strength because that’s all you know how to do.
The people of Judah had spent so long trying to solve their problems on their own that as things got worse and worse they became more and more desperate in their attempts to figure things out. By the time Gedaliah was killed they considered Jeremiah’s words from God to be a flat out lie. They had refused to trust Him before and He had refused to save them from Babylon, so they didn’t build a foundation of trust in God, and now they became so desperate that the “people whom God brought out of slavery in Egypt” were fleeing back to it in hopes of finding protection.
Their hearts, so many generations later, were no different than the hearts of their forefathers who were afraid to enter the promised land and wanted to return to Egypt. The generation that didn’t trust God to give them the promised land perished in the wilderness, and their descendants ended up facing their same fate running away from God and perishing outside His protection.
We have to build a foundation of trust in God in our hearts. We can’t just say we’ll handle everything we can and then trust Him with the big stuff. No. If you are not trusting God with your daily fears and anxieties, then when the big ones come you won’t know how to trust Him. We must trust God completely, with everything, all the time. And, every time you don’t trust God it builds up a resistance in you to trusting Him the next time. And that’s what happened to Judah. They repeated refused to trust God and repent. He promised them over and over that He would deliver them, and they refused over and over until they were overthrown, exiled, and ultimately destroyed.
When you are anxious and afraid, run to the Lord. Turn your heart to Him in prayer and repent. Put yourself in His hands. Do not fear. Trust in the Lord.
Part 5
Jeremiah 46:27-28 (NASB20) "But as for you, Jacob My servant, do not fear, Nor be dismayed, Israel! For, see, I am going to save you from far away, And your descendants from the land of their captivity; And Jacob will return and be undisturbed And secure, with no one making him afraid. "Jacob My servant, do not fear," declares the LORD, "For I am with you. For I will make a complete destruction of all the nations Where I have driven you, Yet I will not make a complete destruction of you; But I will correct you properly And by no means leave you unpunished."
In Jeremiah’s time Babylon and Egypt were two major powers in the region, and Judah was caught in the middle. In Jeremiah 46 God says that Egypt will fall and its cities will become desolate because God has made Babylon more powerful than Egypt.
Judah lost a war with Egypt when king Josiah was killed (2Ki 21-23; 2Ch 33-35), and the next king (and presumably other captives) were taken prisoner to Egypt. And then Judah lost to Babylon when they were exiled.
But God tells Jacob (Israel) not to be afraid because He will deliver them from these far away lands, and restore them to their home again. God’s message to Jacob here gives me mixed feelings at first. Of course, it’s a wonderful promise that God will deliver them out of the hands of their captors and return them to their home. But the way He words it - “I will not make a complete destruction of you;” “and by no means leave you unpunished.” At first that sounds like God is still mad at them, but then I am reminded that God is our Father who corrects us out of love. If He didn’t love us He would let us do whatever we want, and let us destroy ourselves with doing wrong. But He does love us, so He does correct us, and punish us for wrong doing so that we will learn not to do it again.
While we may fear the punishment (which is what makes it an effective punishment) we have to realize that the punishment is done out of love, to turn us away from doing things that are bad for us. And while we may despair in times of trial, we have to realize that God is allowing us to be stretched and broken they way we do to our muscles when we work out in order to make them stronger. The pain of the punishment, and the despair of the trials both shape us and build us into stronger and better children of God. If God just did everything for us, and let us get away with everything — we’d end up being a bunch of soft, weak, spoiled brats…
Trusting God doesn’t mean everything is going to be easy. In fact, it seems to be that those who trust Him the most go through the most discipline and testing — From Noah, to Moses, to Jeremiah, to Jesus. When things get tough, and your mind tells you to despair and be afraid — that’s when you need to trust God the most. That’s when you need to rebuke weakness, and laziness, and selfishness — and give yourself into God’s hands asking Him to guide you and sustain you. That’s when you need to not fear, but trust in the Lord.
Jeremiah 51:46 (NASB20) "Now, so that your heart does not grow faint, And you are not afraid at the report that will be heard in the land--- For the report will come in one year, And after that another report in another year, And violence will be in the land With ruler against ruler---
In this passage God is telling His people to flee Babylon because He is going to pour out His wrath on it. He’s giving them advanced warning that the day will come when Babylon will be overtaken by its enemies, and God will destroy all of its idols.
If His people heed His warning then they will not be afraid of the reports that all these things are happening in Babylon, but instead they will hear these reports and know that the time has come for them to flee.
We have to be like those people. We have to know what God has told us will happen, and what to do when it starts to happen. And we have to look and listen for the signs that those things are happening so that we will follow the Lord’s guidance and act according to what He has told us to do.
We don’t have to be afraid of the things that are happening — all the things that point to the end of the age — because God has told us these things will happen, and He has told us what to do. We only have to obey Him and we will not need to fear. That doesn’t mean everything will go easy for us. But it does mean that we will be on God’s side rather than running away from Him or fighting against Him when all is said and done. Trust in the Lord by knowing everything that He has revealed about Himself to you. Trust Him and do not be afraid.
Lamentations 3:57 (NASB20) You came near on the day I called to You; You said, "Do not fear!"
Lamentations was written by Jeremiah, and in it he pours out his heart. In Lamentations 3 he describes how desperate and hopeless he has become, but then he refrains and remembers that his hope is in the Lord. As he is remembering God’s faithfulness to him he remembers that God said to him, “Do not fear!”
We go through times like this too. And some of us are more like Jeremiah than others — seeming to not just go through hard times, but to live them out most of the days of our lives. It’s easy and natural to despair when times get tough, but we also have to learn a lesson from Jeremiah in that we have to continually meditate on the Lord, and remember His assurances to us, and surrender our lives to Him, and put our hope and trust in Him.
That doesn’t mean that our circumstances will change, but it does mean our attitude and our experience of those circumstances will change. Instead of despair we can hope in the Lord, instead of sorrow we can bask in the Father’s love, instead of dwelling on the hard things we can meditate on God’s word.
When all is said and done, the only thing you are taking with you is your relationship with God, so you might as well experience as much hope and endurance and peace in your relationship with God as you can. Store up that treasure in heaven. Do not fear the things of this world, but trust in God!
με αγαπη,
BJ